ANOTHER STARTING XI: Some more thoughts about soccer, local, national and international

NYC FC needs to find a way to get scoring from players other than David Villa. (FrontRowSoccer.com Photo)

Soccer fan Will Smith of Brooklyn, N.Y. has some things on his mind again.

By Will Smith

Special to FrontRowSoccer.com

I’m off to England this week so I thought I would leave you with a Starting Eleven to tide you over until I return. Feel free to disagree vigorously. I look forward to your comments.

1) Teams can get a result against NYC FC when they neutralize David Villa. The rest of the team isn’t good enough to offset that.

2) If the Red Bulls don’t go back to a 4-2-3-1 soon, this is going to be a very long season.

3) The Cosmos need to land an attacking midfielder who can also take set pieces soon or they too will have a long season.

4) Why does every NYC FC fan I meet act like he’s auditioning for the role of a hooligan in a movie about soccer?

5) The Red Bulls need to find a way to get both Sean Davis and Tyler Adams into the lineup and if that means moving ‎Davis to the back line, so be it.

6) The Cosmos’ opener in Brooklyn, despite the result, was great fun. Ke-babs, boardwalks and soccer. It doesn’t get much better than that.

7) The U.S. will qualify for the World Cup, but that doesn’t disguise the fact that MLS has still only developed two world class players in 22 seasons; Tim Howard and Clint Dempsey. We can do better than that but we won’t until we have greater cooperation between divisions in U.S. soccer.

8) With regard to #7 above, the North American Soccer League and United Soccer League should merge and form one strong second division broken out into regional conferences.

9) Is there anything duller than watching Juve win Serie A every year? (Yes, I’m a Roma fan).

10) I like Rocco B. Commisso. He’s the first New York sports team owner with a pulse since George Steinbrenner passed away.

11) Am I the only person who finds German soccer incredibly dull ‎now that Bayern Munich wins it EVERY year?